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OF COURSE, CRAMER DIDN'T NEED REPORTERS to get out the story on his stocks. Early on in his hedge-fund career, he pioneered a new kind of participant journalism through his frequent magazine columns and television appearances. Cramer talked to his audience from the playing field, instead of from the distant press box where other financial journalists sat.

In outlets like SmartMoney, he often discussed stocks that his fund owned. That was a good thing, if Cramer imparted valuable information and didn't secretly trade against his recommendations. Over the years, regulators have frisked Cramer's trading records for duplicity. They've always found him clean.

In 1996, Cramer launched TheStreet.com, his own financial-media vehicle. Three years later, the mania for dot-com stocks was epidemic. At their initial offering, shares of TheStreet.com's (ticker: TSCM) were priced at $19, but opened at $60. For a short while, Cramer's stake was worth upward of $250 million. Then the dot-com bubble burst, driving the stock below a dollar by 2001.

But the Website survived the shakeout, and the stock now is around $10. TheStreet.com has become a feisty competitor to other online financial news sites -- including those of
Dow Jones
(ticker: DJ), which publishes this magazine and is half-owner of Smart Money. Cramer has always been the site's main draw, but TheStreet.com has employed many other talented editors and reporters.

After retiring from his hedge fund in 2000, Cramer became a full-time journalist, writing for TheStreet.com and New York magazine. But he had the most fun on TV. For years, he'd pitched broadcasters, trying to get his own show. He finally succeeded with CNBC, the financial channel owned by the NBC Universal unit of
General Electric ge -0.07656967840735068%General Electric Co.U.S.: NYSEUSD26.1
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581.2917594654789Market Cap
262981768687.412
Dividend Yield
3.524904214559387% Rev. per Employee
468803More quote details and news »geinYour ValueYour ChangeShort position
(GE); first, with Kudlow & Cramer, and then, in March 2005, with Mad Money. (Dow Jones currently has an agreement to supply content to CNBC).

CNBC's evening schedule had been Desolation Row for years. Mad Money changed that, grabbing viewers with a combination of unequivocal stock picks and slapstick -- a concept that Cramer developed with the help of his nephew and co-writer Cliff Mason, as well as some talented CNBC producers. By cable-television standards, the show has been a hit, with its Nielsen ratings rising every year to a 2007 level of 134,000 homes -- many of them fairly affluent.

In the first part of the show, Cramer typically gives prepared recommendations on one or more stocks. Sometimes, he'll interview the CEO of a company whose stock he then endorses. All the while, he's donning sombreros, shoving toy bears in a meat grinder and sneaking in slyly erudite quips.

Then comes the show's truly distinctive feature: the Lightning Round. With no advance notice, Cramer takes calls from viewers who -- after shouting the obligatory "Booyah!" -- ask him about a stock. Within seconds, Cramer gives a curt Buy or Sell rationale. Then on to the next caller. It's dazzling -- a display of Cramer's freakish ability to remember something about thousands of stocks.

The show's popularity hasn't hurt TheStreet.com. Site traffic, ad sales and the share price have risen. Cramer, meanwhile, has been selling. Since 2005, he's sold $4.6 million worth of TheStreet.com shares through an automatic selling program.

Cramer is unapologetic about his self-promotion, but he acknowledges his bad calls, too. What he hasn't done is tell his viewers the overall score for his two-plus years of Mad Money picks. When he hits his "Buy Buy Buy" sound-effect button, can viewers expect market-walloping results?

In trying to figure that out, we came across YourMoneyWatch.com, a Website started by Michael McGown, a retired securities analyst who worked for several major brokerage firms. McGown started the site not long after the show started, and says Cramer sent a complimentary e-mail after noticing it. McGown counts only Cramer's clear and unconditional Buy recommendations, following a sensible set of rules. McGown tracks the stock until Cramer says sell. "As a person watching the show," says McGown, "I think it's a fair way to rate him."

Over two years, YourMoneyWatch has tracked 1,300 Mad Money picks. It's this tally that shows Cramer's stocks lagging behind the Dow and the S&P 500. This year, Cramer's done better. McGown's data show his picks up 3.2%, while the S&P is up 2%; the Dow, 4.9%; and the Nasdaq, 3.7%. CNBC says the YourMoneyWatch data, as well that of Cramer's Mad Money Website, are "not authoritative."

Hoping to get Cramer's advice on how to measure his Mad Money picks, I called him a few weeks ago. He tore into me. "I've never read a single article that I thought wasn't a massive distortion of what the show's all about," he said. When I said I just wanted to see Mad Money's record, he replied: "I've never seen an analysis that I've regarded as honest, and I doubt yours is any different."

WHERE DID THOSEANALYSES GO WRONG? They counted buys and sells from the Lightning Round segment, said Cramer, and they ignored his caveat against purchasing on the day after a broadcast -- a 24-hour rule he decreed in his Mad Money book. "I say buy it on Day Two," he explained. "I can show exact data, which says my picks are much better than the S&P."

Hearing that, I asked if I could see it. Cramer spelled out the e-mail address of someone at TheStreet.com. I spent the following days -- and weeks -- trying to get a response from that person, from Cramer, from CNBC. Meanwhile, I pored over his Mad Money book, including the two chapters that detail the importance of his Lightning Round advice. He writes that, by definition, Lightning Round recommendations are based on his previous knowledge of the stocks, not on fresh research. Yet he doesn't tell his viewers to ignore the call-in segment's Buys and Sells, concluding: "I still think you should listen to what I'm saying."

Readers respond:

See Barron's readers' letters to the Editor regarding this article in a special Mailbag.

While waiting for a response from Cramer, I made a happy find: http://MadMoney.TheStreet.com. It called itself an exact record of every recommendation in the show since January of this year. A personal note from Cramer likened the site to an audited record of his performance, outside of his control. "I am doing this because my personal reputation is at stake," said the words by Cramer's picture.

There were more than 3,400 recommendations in the database. Better still, it distinguished between stock picks made in the Lightning Round and those from other portions of the show. Our analysis of these stocks found no difference between the performance of the Lightning Round picks and the rest of the Mad Money recommendations.

Jim Cramer has defined himself as a financial journalist who gives you clear Buy and Sell recommendations to make you money. If he's serious about that mission, he or CNBC should publish a database that tracks all his picks from the show's launch date. Even cheerleaders need to be accountable.